


Lending Library

by accidentallymelted



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallymelted/pseuds/accidentallymelted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James Neal borrows Paul Martin's books until he finally borrows a clue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lending Library

So the thing is, Paul has a _lot_ of books. They’re laying all over his house, both in and off of his bookshelves, stacked on tables, tucked into hidden corners, like he starts one and just keeps reading it until he’s done, at which point he puts it down wherever and moves on to the next book. He can also tell you exactly where every book in his house is. James doesn’t question it. Paul has a long-standing love affair with books, everyone on the team knows that.

James is kind of fascinated by Paul’s books, so whenever he’s over at Paul’s, he’ll wander around and pick up a couple with cool cover art and read the summaries on the backs (or the inside front cover flap, sometimes they’re hardbacks). Paul likes a really weird mixture of books, so James has, over the years, picked up history books, biographies, science fiction, true crime novels, and some teen fantasy novels in addition to some fairly standard mystery and thriller novels.

“You can borrow books whenever you feel like it,” Paul tells him after the first couple of times he does this. “Just bring it back whenever you’re done with it.”

Permission thus given, James treats Paul’s house like his own personal library. He’ll take home a couple of books a month, read them, and then bring them back. Sometimes Paul’s eyes will light up when James brings a book back and he’ll make James dinner (or breakfast, or lunch, James tends to gather up the books and return them to Paul whenever he thinks about it) and they’ll discuss whatever book it was. Paul has very strong opinions about Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, which James is slowly working his way through.

He brings home a girl one night, and she’s looking around his bedroom curiously when she happens to see the stack of novels on his bedside table. Her face lights up and she goes over to check them out, giving him a big smile when she sees that the top one is Pratchett’s _Thief of Time_.

“These are great,” she says. “Do you have any more?”

“They’re not mine,” James says, a little thrown. This is not what he’d thought he was bringing her back here for. He’s not upset about it – he’s picked up a lot of Paul’s opinions about the Discworld series, and any girl who likes Pratchett is automatically 10x cooler – but he’s not really operating at full speed. “I’m borrowing them from a friend.”

“Good friend,” she says, flipping through the pages before putting the book down. “I don’t like letting anyone borrow my books – you might not get them back, you know?”

James doesn’t know, but she doesn’t really seem interested in conversation anymore so he puts that aside for later. He remembers the conversation the next day at practice and skates over to where Craig is fixing his stick tape.

“Hey, has Paul ever let you borrow one of his book?”

Craig gives him a funny look. “Are you kidding? He’s super picky about his books – doesn’t even like it when other people pick them up and flip through them at his place.”

“Oh,” James says, because he didn’t know. “He never said anything,” he says, because Craig’s still giving him a funny look.

Craig snorts. “Oh man, I knew he was gone on you but I didn’t know it was that bad,” he says. James must look like he’s just taken a puck to the face, because Craig straightens up at that. “You didn’t know?” James shakes his head and Craig bites his lip. “Shit man, sorry-“

“No, it’s fine,” James says. “I was just surprised, is all – he really likes me?”

“Well, he apparently doesn’t have a problem with you reading his books,” Craig says dryly. “And you’re over at his house _all the time_ , and you never hear him complaining. Really, Nealsy, how dumb can you be? Are you sure all those hair products haven’t caused irreparable brain damage?”

“Fuck off,” James says automatically, and skates away before the chirping can devolve any more.

He goes through the rest of practice in a sort of daze, and Geno pulls him aside in the locker room to ask if he’s okay.

“Not all there, Lazy,” he says mildly, and James winces.

“No, I know, sorry – I just found something out today and it kind of was distracting me.”

“About Paulie?” James frowns and Geno bumps his shoulder gently. “Good. Was wondering when that would happen. I win pool,” he says, and James scowls at him.

“Fuck you, no, there was not a _pool_ on us.”

“Whatever you say,” Geno says blandly, but he wanders over to Sid and Duper after that and says something that causes Duper to swear in French and give James a black look.

“Couldn’t have held out for another month, Nealsy?” he complains. “I could have used the money!”

“I hate you all,” James says devoutly as he finishes getting changed and grabs his keys. Paul’s already ready and getting ready to leave, so James grabs his arm and says, “Can I come over?”

“Sure,” Paul says, giving him a curious look. James mentally kicks himself, because he’s never asked for permission to go over to Paul’s before and he might as well have tattooed “Something Is Wrong” on his forehead.

“So you love me,” he blurts out as he walks into Paul’s house. Paul freezes in the act of hanging up his coat and James could cheerfully murder himself right now for how he’s made Paul look.

“Yes,” Paul says eventually, turning and looking him straight in the eye. “I’m curious as to how you figured it out,” he says, and _shit_ he sounds bitter, James needs a “Redo” button for _life_ , “considering how you’ve missed it for the last year or so.”

“Books,” James says, still unable to get his brain to mouth filter to work. “You don’t let anyone else touch your books. Just me.”

“Ah.” Paul looks away from him and James jolts forward.

“Paulie, no – I just, I didn’t realize it was a thing! And then Jenna said something-“

“Jenna?”

“This girl I brought home with me like last week, not the point. Anyway, she said that you must be a _really_ good friend if you let me keep borrowing your books, and then Craig said you don’t like anyone even picking them up really, except you’ve never seemed to mind when I do it, and then Geno and Sid and Duper and I don’t know who else had a _pool_ – are you laughing?”

“It’s either that or cry, James,” Paul says, dry. “Was there a point to this?”

“Yes! I mean, I think so. I don’t know, really, it’s just that-“ he looks over at Paul pleadingly, but Paul is still staring determinedly at the floor. “I really like borrowing your books, but my favorite part is when I bring them back and you cook and we talk about them and I was thinking, the other day, that I have more fun doing that than I have on dates, and then I was thinking on the way over here that maybe those _were_ dates, and I really liked them,” he says, and thankfully Paul looks up from the floor at that because James has seriously lost control of his brain to mouth filter and that helps him rein it back in. He swallows hard and finishes, “I’d like to keep doing that, if that’s okay?”

“Borrowing my books?”

“Dating you,” James says, and he can’t read Paul’s expression at all.

“Dating me,” he says, and James is about to wilt because what if Paul doesn’t want to date him? It’s already been amply proved that he’s a clueless idiot, and Paul can do so much better. . .

James’ train of thought is cut off when Paul reaches over and hauls him into his arms. “Yes, we can keep doing that,” he says, firmly. James almost faints with relief.

“Oh good,” he says, and then pulls Paul in for a kiss. Paul is a little tense at the beginning but relaxes into it and it’s so good, James feels a little like he’s melting.

 

“You can keep borrowing my books too, you know,” Paul says, a little breathlessly a while later. “Whenever you feel like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Opusculasedfera prompted me with "whenever you feel like it" over at the friending meme on home_ice, and this is what came out. I have a lot of feelings about books, and also about how me letting you borrow my books is the highest form of compliment I can pay you because it means I trust you implicitly. 
> 
> You can follow me on [tumblr](http://accidentallymelted.tumblr.com/) if you like, I reblog a lot of things and sometimes post writing updates, snippets or requests for prompts. :)


End file.
